Neda had won many awards. They did not mean anything to her. She even went to Rome, Italy, to participate in a conference of the poets from all over the world. Some of her works were translated to Italian and English language. Being what she was, famous, or infamous, was breathtaking. But she had only one joy, a complete one, and enduing one, and that was her nephew, Maryam and Sohrab's son, Aria. They had asked her to name him; and she had picked Aria, the male version of Ariana. He was the light of her eyes. She would rain him with her love and many toys. She would beg Sohrab and Maryam to let their son spend the night with her. He had become what she expected to have from her own child, who had been ripped from her arms with the scheme of her father, Mansour, and even the doctor. She was even suspicious to the doctor that he had a role in this plan of stealing her child and getting her a different identity. There had always been this hole in her heart for the last twelve years. The hole was getting deeper and deeper as she got older. She lived, thrived, went to different places, travelled, had interviews in radio, or television, and with different literary journals.
But life for her was now all about her nephew, Aria. There were plenty of friends around, but she could not consider them friends. The only people she cared for were Maryam, Sohrab, Aria, and somewhat Kasra. Now she had a secretary to keep up her appointments. She was scatter minded in her writing as well as things she needed to do. Sometimes she forgot everything. Like for example once she forgot that she had an interview with a big literary European journal, and she did not show up. Goly, her secretary, was a God sent to her. She was her right hand. Besides keeping her appointment, she would tell Neda how to dress and even shopped appropriate clothes for Neda's different appointments.
Neda began sleeping with kasra when she turned twenty nine; the first after her broken marriage. The intimacy with Kasra was just intimacy. It had no meaning. Kasra always had to leave her bed and either go home or sleep in Sohrab's old room. The passion was gone if she had ever had it. She knew that she could be in love and she could be passionate but only after she would find her daughter.
She had searched for her daughter continuously; but all these pursuance were ended five years ago when Mansour, his wife, and their children had moved from Tehran. Nobody knew where they had moved. Neda did some investigation about Mitra's background. The only thing she found out, which she had already known, was that she was originally from Shiraz, a city in the southern part of Iran, where in some books the three thousands years of the history of the country had spurted there, and in some other books the five thousands years history of their country had emerged there or around there. According to her father, in the days of her childhood, when she had been the love of his life, the three thousands years of written history and two thousands years more of unwritten history which made it to five thousands.
One day suddenly she told Kasra that she was going to Shiraz. When she returned after ten days, she was more disappointed than before. Mitra's parents were killed while driving to Tehran in a car accident. Mitra practically had no family left; if she did, Neda was not aware of it. So they had disappeared five years ago and no one knew where and how?!
Nobody knew about her searches, not even Sohrab or even Kasra, who was now mostly lived with her. Why should they know these things? It was her heart she was seeking for not theirs! She had left her life essence in that hospital bed twelve years ago; and she had lived heartless ever since. Her zest for life was silenced in the crowded country, who mostly did not know her twelve years ago. She did not care that women envied her! She did not care men hated her! She did not care male poets had grudge against her! She did not care the animosity toward her from all over! She wrote, "THE SILENT HEART".
✎
"Soothing hope is gone from my heart!
I hear neither call, nor message, nor a new start!
Here there is neither alluring eye,
nor appeasing music close by.
☄At dawn, a woman left in winter cold
From a city full of light, love, pain, and gold.
Did anyone weep for her absence?
Did anyone find her trace?
✐She stared at a pair of eyes to know
The secret place of hope, dream, or rainbow.
But those eyes filled her with blaze;
Transformed her to more misery and daze.
✉They told her nothing but strife,
Skin was the only thing on her body, no life.
Anywhere she went, they sang
absurdity, those words in her ears rang.
✍One night she lay on grass and cried,
'Don't go!' She said, 'let me be at your side.'
'Let me sleep and feel the rain!'
But the ghost disappeared, it ignored her pain.
Now it is only her and her silent heart."
To Be Continued
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